I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky
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:frogsiren: BLUESKY HAS OFFICIALLY NETSPLIT :frogsiren:
There has always been more than one Fediverse. Different instances make different moderation decisions so some instances can't see posts by some users.
There has only ever been one Bluesky because every ATProto frontend uses the same Appview.
It is January 2026 and that's no longer true; Blacksky's Appview is available for beta use and there is at least 1 user banned on Bluesky but not Blacksky. And vice versa.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:w4xbfzo7kqfes5zb7r6qv3rw/post/3mcozwdhjos2b
@mcc Someone should update the Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacksky
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:frogsiren: BLUESKY HAS OFFICIALLY NETSPLIT :frogsiren:
There has always been more than one Fediverse. Different instances make different moderation decisions so some instances can't see posts by some users.
There has only ever been one Bluesky because every ATProto frontend uses the same Appview.
It is January 2026 and that's no longer true; Blacksky's Appview is available for beta use and there is at least 1 user banned on Bluesky but not Blacksky. And vice versa.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:w4xbfzo7kqfes5zb7r6qv3rw/post/3mcozwdhjos2b
@mcc Do you not find the login UI for https://blacksky.community and https://bsky.app a bit concerning? Because if you fill in a “custom server” you are now sending your password from one app view to a different server? If you host your own PDS do you only ever send that pw to your own servers?
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This is why—although, now Blacksky is letting me "see through" Bluesky's worst moderation decisions, I'm glad, because Bluesky's moderation is weird and arbitrary—I think it's a downside of the network, and Mastodon made the right decision not offering this feature. Fediverse defederation forces a degree of soft group consensus on moderation: it's possible to say "if you're talking to X, I don't want to talk to *you*". On Bluesky we are all ghosts walking through walls and this can't be enforced
Fediverse defederation forces a degree of soft group consensus on moderation: it's possible to say "if you're talking to X, I don't want to talk to you".
How? If server A blocks server B, and neither server blocks server C, server C can still interact with both servers A and B. Server A could of course choose to also block server C for not blocking server B, but this would have to be done manually (you can't necessarily tell if server C blocks server B, since blocklists are often not public and not all interactions are public either) and I don't see how it's forced.
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Fediverse defederation forces a degree of soft group consensus on moderation: it's possible to say "if you're talking to X, I don't want to talk to you".
How? If server A blocks server B, and neither server blocks server C, server C can still interact with both servers A and B. Server A could of course choose to also block server C for not blocking server B, but this would have to be done manually (you can't necessarily tell if server C blocks server B, since blocklists are often not public and not all interactions are public either) and I don't see how it's forced.
@noisytoot It's possible for A to figure out C's blocks and take action. C might choose to make that hard, but A might choose to treat hiding the blocks as suspicious. Or just talk to people and ask them what the blocks are.
By contrast on Bluesky it's not possible to do any of this. Not "it's not automatic", not "it's potentially hard", it's impossible. Any account can be on any PDS can be on any appview, there are no walls or fences, the instance is not present as a moderation abstraction.
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:frogsiren: BLUESKY HAS OFFICIALLY NETSPLIT :frogsiren:
There has always been more than one Fediverse. Different instances make different moderation decisions so some instances can't see posts by some users.
There has only ever been one Bluesky because every ATProto frontend uses the same Appview.
It is January 2026 and that's no longer true; Blacksky's Appview is available for beta use and there is at least 1 user banned on Bluesky but not Blacksky. And vice versa.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:w4xbfzo7kqfes5zb7r6qv3rw/post/3mcozwdhjos2b
@mcc oh that's sick. congrats to blacksky for making it
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Oh, and let's consider, for a moment, the downsides of an individual user being able to "opt out" of moderation decisions. The problem with misbehavior on social media is force multipliers. One person harassing you is no problem; one person and their 3000 friends is a big problem. Imagine Bluesky and Blacksky ban user X but Trumpsky lets X keep posting. Now their 3000 friends— still in Bluesky's good graces— can see their posts calling to harass you, AND can zero-friction zip over to yell at you
@mcc So far, I have been banned on Instagram, X and Bluesky. I am a serious misbehavior, but I don't harass anyone.
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This is why—although, now Blacksky is letting me "see through" Bluesky's worst moderation decisions, I'm glad, because Bluesky's moderation is weird and arbitrary—I think it's a downside of the network, and Mastodon made the right decision not offering this feature. Fediverse defederation forces a degree of soft group consensus on moderation: it's possible to say "if you're talking to X, I don't want to talk to *you*". On Bluesky we are all ghosts walking through walls and this can't be enforced
@mcc I read your thread only now, and I wanted to thank you for posting all that. I am no fan of Bluesky and their one-instance federation, but I have a phony account there, to follow how it's going for them. Threads like yours fill in additional context. 🙏
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:frogsiren: BLUESKY HAS OFFICIALLY NETSPLIT :frogsiren:
There has always been more than one Fediverse. Different instances make different moderation decisions so some instances can't see posts by some users.
There has only ever been one Bluesky because every ATProto frontend uses the same Appview.
It is January 2026 and that's no longer true; Blacksky's Appview is available for beta use and there is at least 1 user banned on Bluesky but not Blacksky. And vice versa.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:w4xbfzo7kqfes5zb7r6qv3rw/post/3mcozwdhjos2b
@mcc What's the monthly cost on maintaining several terabytes of data in perpetuity?
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@mcc What's the monthly cost on maintaining several terabytes of data in perpetuity?
@lrhodes Depends on how you do it I imagine. But remember that's several terabytes for the like what, three years or something Bluesky has been running. We will expect it to grow endlessly, and we should expect the growth to grow endlessly as Bluesky becomes more popular.
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@lrhodes Depends on how you do it I imagine. But remember that's several terabytes for the like what, three years or something Bluesky has been running. We will expect it to grow endlessly, and we should expect the growth to grow endlessly as Bluesky becomes more popular.
@mcc Yeah. I don't see how that's sustainable. I'm not sure it's even sustainable for Bluesky.
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What I saw happen when Black Twitter came to Fediverse is attempts to build community resources— like shared cross-instance blocklist infrastructure— get demonized by white queers as being anti-queer (because they, personally, wound up moderated— due to, as far as I saw, entirely real racism). I saw multiple projects shut down or hobbled by this and good people driven off fedi. I don't know if any devs from that era are involved in the new Bluesky efforts. But the Bluesky efforts *are* thriving.
@mcc sad stuff 😢 Thanks for the history lesson and analysis.
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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@mcc sad stuff 😢 Thanks for the history lesson and analysis.
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@mcc Yeah. I don't see how that's sustainable. I'm not sure it's even sustainable for Bluesky.
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@lrhodes Depends on how you do it I imagine. But remember that's several terabytes for the like what, three years or something Bluesky has been running. We will expect it to grow endlessly, and we should expect the growth to grow endlessly as Bluesky becomes more popular.
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@mcc What's the monthly cost on maintaining several terabytes of data in perpetuity?
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@game sì, ci sono anche soluzioni (purtroppo non previste da Mastodon) in cui alcuni utenti (i minori) accedono solo alle risorse locali o a un bouquet selezionato di istanze esterne, mentre altri possono utilizzare la federazione. Ma non sono di facile implementazione
@mapto @informapirata
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t yet
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@mcc I read your thread only now, and I wanted to thank you for posting all that. I am no fan of Bluesky and their one-instance federation, but I have a phony account there, to follow how it's going for them. Threads like yours fill in additional context. 🙏
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Bonjour ! @Neko0001
